When your feet don't touch the ground...
Thoughts from a September that I never really landed in...
A prayer…
Heart let me be a vessel for your voice. Love let me be a living transmission of you.
May I return to you when my clumsy feet stumble from the path. And may I return with love and not judgement, for I will stumble. I will de-rail. This is to be human.
I hope to do it humble.
Hello lovely one
How is your heart feeling? How are you tending to self today?
I am currently sipping a warm and frothy cup of cacao as I write to you. My littlest is with her grandmother for a few hours and my eldest is at school - it is totally silent in the house and my nervous system is slowly recalibrating after what has been an extremely ‘full’ month.
I was chatting to my dear friend
over the weekend as I finally got to catch up on a few voice notes and we were both expressing the same thing… that we never really fully landed into the month of September.It was a month of skimming over the surface, of fullness in so many different ways and I feel like the embodiment of that phrase… ‘my feet haven’t touched the ground’.
Between birthdays, hen celebrations, the first days of school, our 15 year wedding anniversary, trainings in London, holding circles, irregular childcare patterns and a huge amount of change in routine… the month appears to have disappeared without me ever really feeling like I was ‘in it’… do you know what I mean?
We moved from the absolute slowness (and gentle warmth) of summer with long luscious mornings, no time constraints, picnics in the garden and park play dates to… seemingly overnight… swift mornings with pressure to remember boots and coats and reading bags, many (many) emails from school with different dates and requests to adhere to and some rather intense emotions from everyone! This, alongside the rather dramatic drop in temperature that my body really doesn’t love, means it is fair to say that for most of September I have felt… discombobulated.
If I am honest I haven’t had any real rhythm to tend to my own self, or my heart work and creativit, with any deep focus since the start of the summer when we went away on our last holiday outside of the school holidays.
From June onwards it has been snippets and snatches of time here and there, writing and creating round the edges. For a little while I really enjoyed the spaciousness and lack of routine, it was a chance to remove pressures and surrender a little of my need to control. However, over these last few weeks I have noticed a little frustration settling in my system… my heart is pulling me towards new visions and ideas, and yet the time and space isn’t always often available.
Last week I felt de-motivated and exhausted… and when I meet that stage of my creative cycle (it usually corresponds with the week after I bleed) I still get that little fear that my creativity might never come back.
Nonetheless I sat with it, in trust, and low and behold this week (corresponding with the new moon and after holding a beautiful circle on Friday — which truly is my soul home) I can feel the bubbles of excitement and inspiration and DESIRE returning.
all I feel is nothing
is it apathy or emptiness?
nothing is everything
and everything is never enough
this numbness is something
even though it feels like…
nothing
I have so much to say, and yet so little as well. The energy right now is very ‘cuspy’ as I am describing it. A little of the in between where so much is happening and yet nothing at the same time.
Held silence
The weekend before last I began a practitioner training with Katie of Pause Place and the only word I can really use to describe it is… exquisite.
It was everything I needed and more… and what that looked like in reality was two days of a huge amount of stillness and silence.
i am tenderised
a soft mushy sensation
leaks through my ribcage
threatening to spill
at any moment
swelling and subsiding
i loathe it and love it
desire it and fear it
the tenderness of my breast
a home to my heart
layers lost
raw and open
In that silence words began to bubble up… words that had a very different transmission to the words I am familiar with. Words that didn’t make sense on a human level and yet on a soul level they were like a home I had been longing for.
All it took was a held silence.
Held silence is very different to just silence… when someone with integrity holds space for you to be silent, quiet and still there is a safety to it that allows you to deepen into trust, to know that another being has their energetic arms wrapped around you and thet you can simply be.
I didn’t truly know the power of this until that weekend and the resonance has been vibrating through me ever since.
Gifts in the chaos
As I reflect on the pace of September, and the sensation of simply skimming through it, I can also see a lot of beauty in the many different experiences that I greeted. It was a month of being called to be very present with what was in front of me in each moment, there wasn’t the capacity to forward plan or do anything beyond the essential, and while some parts of myself feel a little unsettled by that disorganisation, it has been a huge lesson in softening to each moment. It has taught me a huge lesson in the power of presence.
While my feet felt as though they didn’t really touch the ground, I feel surprisingly rooted as we greet a new month. Surprisingly at peace and calm with the chaos that circulates around me. Perhaps a little more resilient maybe?
With that said I will be ensuring that I tend to myself fully to allow the past few months to integrate all of these experiences - for me this looks like intentional time carved out to walk in nature, slowly sip cacao, moving my body with a focus on strengthening, keeping warm as the seasons shift (the hot water bottle has already been out) and laying down to rest as often as I can.
I also have many things bubbling up to bring to this space, including a new live online Yoga Nidra Rest offering. More information will be coming on this soon.
Has September been a month of fullness for you too? How are you feeling as we greet October? What are you doing to tend to yourself at this time of the year? Please share in the comments, or reply to me if you are reading this on email.
Until next time.
Sent with so much love
Lauren
xxx
If you are local to me in Kent I would love to invite you to my next gathering, a Deep Rest Journey with Cacao on 2nd November in Sevenoaks. Find out more here.
Hello to anyone who is new here… I am Lauren. A Mother of two daughters, Writer, Women’s Circle Facilitator, Sacred Business Mentor & Guide, Soul Branding & Website Creator and multi-dimensional human being. I walk with, and hold space for, others who are treading the tender path of their heart and soul work. You can find out more about this space and what to expect here. Please do subscribe to join the journey, and if you enjoy this, and you do have the means, I would be so grateful if you chose to support my creations for £5 a month…
If you enjoyed this piece and wish to explore my other spaces please use the links below to explore…
Motherhood Essays
Self-Tending Practices
The Unravelling Podcast
Sacred Living
Work With Me
Adore you and this ❤️
Held silence - these very words have been alive for me recently✨
September here is very different from UK, seasons and school hols are opposite, so my Sept was bursting with creative experiments, gratefully.
Lovely to read your update.
PS what’s your tip for froth? My cacao wants to know 😁